American politics

Gun control

We shall fight them in our driveways

HARRY REID finally announced he had evolved into supporting an assault-weapons ban on Wednesday, about a month after it might have made a difference. It probably wouldn't have made a difference anyway, of course. Had Mr Reid decided to let Dianne Feinstein's assault-weapons bill be part of a broader package of gun-control measures rather than stripping it out, it no doubt would have been voted down today, along with the Toomey-Manchin background-check bill. Still, Mr Reid had a pretty nice explanation of his change of heart, which I'm going to cite at length.

Reid said he had had to “reassess” his position after listening to the arguments against an assault weapon ban and deciding that they were “absurd.”

“The right to own a gun to protect your home and your family, to hunt, to go target practicing, I’ll continue to defend that right as long as I’m serving the people of Nevada,” Reid said. “But…you do not need an assault weapon to defend yourself or your property. Assault weapons have one purpose and one purpose only: to kill a large number of people really quick. This goes well beyond the purpose of self-defense.”

“The wish to arm ourselves against the police who keep our streets safe is not a reason to oppose an assault weapons ban. I believe that as Americans, we have a right to arm ourselves against criminals, but we don’t need the ability to arm ourselves against the army or the police. The United States military is not out to get us. Federal law enforcement, local police departments are not out to get us. These conspiracy theories are dangerous and they should be put to rest.”

“I’ll vote for the ban because maintaining the law and order is more important than satisfying conspiracy theorists who believe in black helicopters and false flags,” he said.

Four months after the massacre of 20 children and six adults in Newtown, Connecticut, the government decided today to do absolutely nothing to prevent future gun atrocities, and it did so for exactly the reasons Mr Reid identifies above. The government decided to do nothing to stop gun atrocities because the political power of obsessive gun zealots with ignorant, hallucinatory political worldviews outweighed the reasonable public consensus that an overabundance of easily obtained guns has created a serious threat to Americans' public safety. The government decided to do nothing because of the political heft of Wayne LaPierre's NRA, because of the disproportionate one-man-thirty-votes congressional representation of rural districts, because of the electoral vulnerability of red-state Democratic senators, because of the decision by Republican senators to filibuster this and every Democratic bill, and because of the monomaniacal dedication of guys like this, who on his YouTube channel goes by the name "Sturmgewehre". In a video that got over 500,000 views, he describes the threat he sees from Ms Feinstein's legislation:

You have to see the wistful, tragic expression that comes into his voice when he contemplates the fate of all these poor, beautiful little guns. It's touching. One wonders whether there might be a more appropriate recipient of his sympathy.

Gabrielle Giffords, the former congresswoman who was shot in the head two years ago in Arizona, had a pretty nice line in the aftermath of the failed background-check vote, too: "Moments ago, the US Senate decided to do the unthinkable about gun violence—nothing at all." And the context of the quip is suggestive: it was the opening line of a fund-raising email for her gun-control PAC, Americans for Responsible Solutions. As the email went out, she was at the White House with parents of the Newtown victims and President Obama, who called it a "shameful day for Washington". In a year and a half, gun-control advocates and gun-control foes will go back to the ballot boxes to try to break the congressional deadlock, each bearing the pictures of their martyrs. One side's martyrs are named Daniel, Madeleine, Noah and Avielle. The other side's martyrs are named Glock, Ruger, and Smith & Wesson. It will be interesting to see who the American people choose.

The 2nd amendment is the only amendment with a stated purpose, to support a well-regulated militia. The concept was that individual citizens would supply their own arms when called to duty. With the advent of widespread weapon manufacturing, and state authorization to acquire and use standard weaponry, there was no longer a need for fighters to own personal weapons. In fact, they were required to leave such weapons at home.

With a stated purpose that is no longer valid, the amendment itself is subject to re-interpretation regarding the degree to which individuals may acquire weaponry, not for use in defending the State, but for strictly personal use.

Where can buy a gun off the internet without a background check? I have lived in several very gun friendly states and in every one if you buy a gun off the net or at a gun show you go through a background check. So.. where is this argument coming from? As for labeling those who live in rural areas as "obsessive gun zealots with ignorant, hallucinatory political worldviews". What is more ignorant and hallucinatory retaining the right to decide how to live your life through democratic representation or giving over that power to those who claim to "know best" despite their utter disconnect with the population.

As much as I support gun control, for the reason that most people who feel the need to own a gun strike me as insecure psychopaths, and the vast majority of people almost certainly don't know how to use a gun, it is clear that the availability of guns is not America's main problem. Many many countries have easily-accessible guns, and widespread gun ownership, without the absurd murder rate and relentless atrocities that plague America. It would appear that America's problems run far deeper than that, a social disease which is harder to define and explain, but basically seems to be related to a complete breakdown of trust between people, and social capital. Could be a result of rampant inequality, or simply the repressive nature of consumer capitalism that makes people competitive drones, but such questions are rather above my paygrade! The fact remains that banning guns will not be enough - Americans will use any means possible to murder each other, as long as this social disease exists.

Thanks for the response, that's a good point to know about the varying definition on violent crime in the UK vs the US. It is a complex relationship, absolutely. I just wish there could be more of a discussion in this vein, rather than throwing out all data and analysis and instead emotional appeals to Red Dawn fantasy scenarios.

its simple. to make the law work, they'd need a registry. Canada tried that. It failed, and cost 10x what they thought it would. So = no crime prevention, but enormous costs, and tremendous burden on law enforcement on applying law to otherwise non-criminal behavior. see = drug war. Failure writ large. Voting against dumb ideas isn't some ideological thing - its just voting against more dumb when we already have plenty in law. But feel free to vent like the writer, casting this as some incredible failure of 'sanity'. The same thinking is what would argue that our current deficit spending *isn't high enough*. Call me crazy, fine. I can live with that.

Biased reporting with a distinct lack of factual research (along with an overly obvious dose of sour grapes) is a bad direction for the Economist to take.
Like many others that commented, I read this publication for an unbiased view of issues — now your publication stands to lose many subscribers from both political fields should it depart into editorializing.
This is a disappointment. I hope it's the last.

You write they did "nothing" to stop gun violence?! You must be retarded! By voting down these bills, and keeping guns in the hands of law abiding citizens, our government did a lot to stop gun violence! Because we were allowed to keep our guns to protect ourselves from criminals, who these bills WOULD NOT HAVE AFFECTED, they have PREVENTED an increase in violent crime brought about by the disarming of lawful American citizens! I am happy our government did not take away our ability to defend ourselves by infringing on our constitutional rights as citizens of this country!

I love this country, I really do. What I don't understand is people who seem to think their government is free of the evils of man; especially the great red, white and blue. It can happen. History tells us this. The 2nd Amendment was created by our founding fathers for this very reason. Will there ever be a time when we can lay down our arms? I sure hope so. But our species are not enlightened enough as a whole for that to happen just yet, so that time isn't now.

It's called the Bill of RIGHTS, not needs or wants. We're not in the habit of being called to justify our needs for any of the other rights, and shouldn't be for this one either. The fact that Reid is even stating that concerns about government 'out to get us' are unfounded is the very reason that the concerns are indeed 'founded'. History is replete with governments who took their citizens' guns, and they all said ahead of time that people who were concerned about that happening were just 'conspiracy theorists'. Forgive us if we don't trust our government - they've not really given us any reason to trust them. The founding fathers intended that the government should fear and respect the people, not the other way around! Lastly, meaningful measures have not yet even been proposed. Enacting more restrictive laws does nothing to restrict those who choose not to follow laws in the first place. It criminalizes otherwise law abiding citizens. Why is it that a shooting happens and it's the gun's fault, but a bombing happens and they says it's the bomber's fault? WHAT HYPOCRISY! Maybe they should outlaw the detonation of bombs, that would certainly stop them. Maybe create 'bomb free zones'. . .

Nice to see Reid at least show some green shoots. But he's responsible for maintaing the Senate filibuster, and as long as we have the filibuster the Senate will never get a damn thing done on anything of consequence.

I agree. The only way to solve problems is open discussion and sticking to logic, facts, reason and observation (a.k.a. science). While I'm obviously in favor of free, law-abiding people being able to be armed, only a fool would ignore an obvious problem. I think that part of being a responsible gun owner is to bring all of our knowledge and expertise to the table, roll up our sleeves and contribute to finding effective solutions.

""what I find baffling is how everyone blames everything for the defeat of these bills except the bills themselves.""

No @()#$*@#!

People seem to think that "Politicians DO SOMETHING!!" always=Good idea. Progressives seem to think ALL LAW IS GOOD LAW! MORE LAW!!! The bill was an ill-conceived POS that deserved to die a quick death. Yet the media would have us believe that a "vote against this bill is a vote to Murder Babies"! The weepy-concern-troll, emotional-sef-flagellation-blended-with-Patronizing-Moral-Superiority exhibited by the author of this piece is complete par for the course.

The purpose of writings like this in the end isnt' to actually say anything substantive about Guns in society. Its for Lefties to simply tut-tut and play holier-than-thou and morally superior